05 Mar 2023

Government adheres to the rule of law and complies with court orders.

The Assistant Minister for State President, Mr Dumezweni Mthimkhulu said this when responding to a question in Parliament recently.

He said the total number of court cases relating to human resources issues in which public officers sued government for the past five years was less than 6 000.

“Looking at the size of the public service of almost 130 000, a level of disputes of less than 6 000, which is just under five per cent, is reasonable in that it falls within range of best labour practices of 10 per cent,” he said in response to a question from Palapye legislator, Mr Onneetse Ramogapi.

The assistant minister said majority of these cases were as a consequence of human resources issues that began at ministry level and ultimately ended up at court or arbitration.

He said in many of the cases, the Attorney General, as the legal representative of the government, DPSM director, as the office responsible for are cited as parties to these proceedings.

Mr Mthimkhulu said in an effort to closely monitor employee related issues at the ministry level with a view to reducing the frequency of HR related cases, DPSM had put in place monthly reporting tool which ministries submitted monthly report on grievances and disputes.

The tool is also geared towards including further ownership and accountability of ministries with regard to employee-employer relations at the workplace, adding that it was envisaged it would further gaps and reconcile data that the AG was reporting to ministries.

He said as at end of December 2022, the data provided by the ministries using the reporting tools showed that 21 per cent of the case had been concluded and 79 per cent were still ongoing.

The matters involved acting appointment, promotion, progression , overtime , scarce skills , working conditions , compensation , transfers, recruitment , reprimand , dismissal , surcharge , suspension, retirement and demotion.

Mr Mthimkhulu further added that the AG chambers did not charge ministries any legal fees for dealing with cases, adding that the total amount spent in legal costs per court cases varied and only arose in instances where a case had been lost.

He also said the ministry was currently capacitating the leadership at different districts levels to aid understanding, implementation and compliance of labour legislations, policies, procedures and practices in order to ensure that administrative and disciplinary processes and procedures were followed.

Adding that there was an ongoing review of the disciplinary procedures involving both government and public service unions, which came about as a consequence of collective Labour Agreement concluded by the parties.

Furthermore, he added that Attorney General’s Chambers civil case management does not disaggregate cases into specific subject areas of claims for unfair suspensions, dismissal or termination.

Mr Ramogapi had, among others, wanted to the minister to explain the total number of cases of public servants per ministry who won cases of unfair suspension, dismissal or illegal termination of contracts at court for the last five years up to date. ends